


a dream is a soft place to land

by butmomilovepeter



Series: come wrestle me free; clean from the war [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Cute Jack Kline, F/M, Jessica Moore Lives, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-10-29 11:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17807135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butmomilovepeter/pseuds/butmomilovepeter
Summary: Sam Winchester was definitely older than the twenty-two year old she knew. He wore similar clothes, but had more stubble and more lines on his face.She locked eyes with the love of her life, and she could see the pain immediately. He stops talking, his mouth hanging open slightly. He stares for a moment, like he can’t believe what he sees, but it shifts into what she can only guess was...acknowledgement.And he’s running towards her.





	1. love of my life, can't you see?

She wakes up slowly. 

First it’s the feeling in her toes. It grows up her legs and then into her stomach, chest, face, and to the top of her head. 

Her body feels slightly hot; the middle of her stomach throbbed slightly. 

When her eyes finally open, all there is is white. Bright, slightly blinding white. 

And then she remembers. 

_ My name is Jessica Moore.  _

The white subsides as she takes in the world around her. Breathing comes easy, but it’s like she hadn’t done it in a while. Like riding a bike after a few summers of not doing it. 

Panic sinks in quite suddenly, as she shoots up to see the small bare room in full. 

It’s small, and looks kinda like her dorm room her first year of college--

“Fuck.” She says, memories suddenly flooding back.  _ “Fuck!”  _

_ I died, Oh God I died _

She runs out of the room, not bothering to notice that she was in the nightgown she died in, the satin sticking with static to her skin. 

“Hello? Hello?!” She yells, running through the plain corridors, wishing she had slippers to keep her feet warm against the cold floor. Questions ran through her head like bullets flying, like why she died, how she died, where she went, and why she was back--

That’s when she runs into  _ him _ . 

He’s an average looking man, with a confused and concerned face. He had a tan trenchcoat on, making him seem less intimidating, but more strange. 

“Who are you?” He asks, not sounding angry, but just bewildered. 

“Who am  _ I?”  _ She gasps, catching her breath. “I don’t even know where I am!” 

“You don’t?” He cocks his head and squints his eyes, almost like he was trying to remember who she was. “What’s your name, miss?” 

“Why should I tell you that?” She takes a step back, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time. 

The man sighs, not harshly, however. “My name is Castiel.”

“Castiel?” She snarls, too overwhelmed to be polite. “That got a funky last name too?”

Castiel smiled a little bit. “Castiel…Winchester?”

It hits her full force, knocking out all the breath she had attempted to bring back. 

Sam leaving getting up in the middle of the night.

Sam leaving with his brother.

_ (Hey. Everything's going to be okay. I will be back in time, I promise.) _

He wasn’t back in time. 

Brady coming over while she made cookies.

Brady being suspicious...Brady with that knife...the black eyes...she was being lifted of the ground, she was stabbed, and it hurt like crazy and she’ll never be able to explain the pain. 

Sam walking back in and eating her cookies, Sam lying down, content, Sam looking up…

The rest was a fiery blur. 

Castiel took her elbow to keep her from falling. 

“What’s going on?” He asks, visibly concerned. 

“My name...my name is Jessica Moore. And I should be dead.”

And for some reason, Castiel knew exactly what that meant.

 

~

Jessica now sat with a cup of coffee in her hand, the trenchcoat around her shoulders and with a teenage boy with big doe eyes  _ (like Sam’s eyes were, like they always were) _ staring at her. She wants to ask him not to, but every time her mouth opens, the sob in her throat climbs closer up her vocal chords. He seems like a sweet kid, but him and Castiel won’t tell her much. 

Castiel said that they really  _ can’t _ , not until the rest of his “friends” get here.

“You look like Jessica.” The boy says, innocently. It takes her by surprise, almost dropping her coffee in the process. 

“I am. I am Jessica,” she says, fighting the sob. “What do you mean?”

His eyes widen, a young, boyish look blooms on his face. “I knew it! I saw your picture in S--” 

“Jack.” Castiel cuts him off. He raised a disapproving eyebrow at the boy, who frowned and backed off. 

“Sorry.” He mumbles. Castiel immediately softens.

“It’s alright, just remember what I said.” The boy nods after, smiling back. 

_ Is that his son?  _

“Why won’t you tell me anything?” She retorts. “You say I’m safe yet--”

“I just called the people who need to be here. I can’t tell you anything until they get here. Because you are right. You should be dead.” 

The dread crept up her spine, and she pulled the coat around her a bit tighter. The questions hadn’t stop the wanting to be asked, but the overwhelming remembrance of her death is enough to keep her quiet. 

“Is this about Sam?” She can’t hold in the question any longer. Castiel turns and looks at her with no answer, but she can see the ”yes” in his eyes. Jack seemed to be visibly biting his tongue. 

But before she can say anything more, a door swings open from above.

She’s only met him once, but already notices how much older he was. Because there was Dean Winchester, brother to her boyfriend. 

“Holy shit.” He whispers. “Jessica.”

“Dean…” The name feels weird when she says it. “Where’s Sam?”

Dean shakes his head to snap him out of his own funk. “He was getting something out of the car--”

“Cas? When you say “it’s important, come quickly” and then hung up, you better be--”

He gets cut off by a voice so sweet she thought she wasn’t even hearing it. It sounded deeper, a little darker, but still the same voice that whispered sweet nothings during late nights or laughed when she braided his hair. 

The voice that broke when he had nightmares in the middle of night, the voice that would crack when the world got too much from him to handle. 

The voice that  _ told  _ her he’d be home. He didn’t come home, and maybe if he did, she wouldn’t be dead. 

But then when she sees him, it all disappears.

Sam Winchester was definitely older than the twenty-two year old she knew. He wore similar clothes, but had more stubble and more lines on his face. 

She locked eyes with the love of her life, and she could see the pain immediately. He stops talking, his mouth hanging open slightly. He stares for a moment, like he can’t believe what he sees, but it shifts into what she can only guess was...acknowledgement.  

And he’s running towards her. 

Neither says anything, but she leaps out of the coat and doesn’t even care she dropped the coffee. Her feet were no longer cold. 

Sam Winchester wraps his arms around her waist, like he had been practicing for years, and it’s just as romantic as she remembered it being. 

And he kisses her, like he did that Halloween night, with his hand moved to cup her face. She wraps her own arms around his neck, feeling his tears on her cheeks. 

They pull away, and to Jessica, they are the only ones in the room. 

She wipes his tears, despite her own forming. “Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry.” 

He does anyway, and whether they are happy or sad, she doesn’t quite know. 

“Oh God,  _ Jess.”  _ He breathes out, like her name could hold the stars in the sky. 

“Hi, Sam.” Like they had just gotten home from a long day. That’s all it truly was to her, a long, long day. 

But she could tell it was a lot longer for Sam. 

“Jess.” His voice breaks. “I’m so sorry. I’m so  _ sorry _ .” 

“Sam.” She didn’t even know she missed saying it. 

“I  _ told  _ you I would come home, and I  _ saw  _ you, weeks before, in my dreams, I didn’t say anything.” He says, sobs racking his body. 

She doesn’t even really know what he says, but the way his voice chokes is enough to make her pull her love down a bit, pushing his wet face into the crook of her neck. She patted his hair, rubbed his back, shushing him,  _ anything _ for him to be okay. 

“I don’t blame you, baby.” 

And she didn’t. And she never will. 

Jessica Moore was alive. And she has and forever will be in love with Sam Winchester.  

 


	2. you'll never walk alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She’s missed quite a lot.” Cas puts in.  
> “Sam will tell her what’s been happening.” Dean says, starting to walk into the kitchen. Everyone deserves something good for dinner, and his mother had given him a couple of recipes to try out.  
> “But will he tell her _everything?”_ Cas chides, sending a shake through Dean’s core.  
> He knows Sam won’t tell her about Hell, Lucifer, being soulless...all the stuff Sam wishes he didn’t know either.  
> He won’t tell her about all those he’s lost, or he _will,_ and Sam will blame himself.  
> “No, he won’t.” Dean decides. “That will be for us to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay the story is really beginning!! im giving jess her own backstory lmao  
> soon...we'll learn who brought her back and why

Sam Winchester had never given up being a religious man. He didn’t care if God wasn’t listening anymore. He didn’t care that the angels that he fought against, or even the ones he fought for, could hear him.

He prayed every couple nights, when it was late and his body hurt with phantom pains that he had to remind himself weren’t really there. He prayed for being to be returned to him, or to make sure the ones he wasn’t getting back were safe somewhere.

So he did, in fact, pray, selfishly, for Jessica to be returned to him.

So when he sees her there, unharmed and tangible, wearing Cas’s coat, his whole world stops turning.

He can’t even _breathe_ , because for some reason he knows it’s no trick. She’s the real deal.

His feet move swiftly underneath him, not even bothering to grab the railing, as she drops her coffee.

He grabs her life she’s the whole world. She _was_ his whole world—

Until he fucked up.

He kisses her because he’s been waiting fifteen years to kiss her. He cries because he hasn’t cried for her in fifteen years. He smells her hair because he remembers the first night they spent together, when he was shy and tripping over his words. But she just held his hand, told him he was doing okay and he fell asleep in her blonde locks and fell in love.

He cries, because he forgot what being in love felt like.

It’s the same feeling he had when _he_ had to kill Madison, or when he saw Eileen on that table, or when Sarah died because of Crowley but he could have stopped it , or when _he_ killed Kevin, it was _his_ fault Charlie died—

But she holds his face and dries his tears, softly saying, “Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry.”

Like she used to do, never asking any questions, even when he cried over nightmares that he knew she was concerned for.

“Oh God, _Jess.”_

“Hi, Sam.” That’s her voice. _Her_ voice. Clear and beautiful and just like he remembered.

And he can’t keep it in anymore.

“Jess.” She stares at him with her big brown eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so _sorry.”_

He doesn’t like the way he shakes, but she doesn’t seem to care.

“Sam.”

But he can’t stop. She just stares up at him, with nothing but affection in her eyes.

She should be angry. She should be throwing things at him and telling him she hates him and leaving out the door and never come back.

But she doesn’t. Instead she just says softly, “Sam.”

His mouth wobbles, not remembering nor caring that the others were still in the room.

“I _told_ you I would come home, and I _saw_ you, weeks before, in my dreams, I didn’t say anything.”

He remembers the first time he saw her die. He woke up all sweaty, small screams dying off his lips. She just let Sam hold her, and never asked why he wanted her to.

And again, instead of pushing him away, she pulled him close into a tight hug.  He knows full well she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

But she says the five words that he never thought he’d ever hear.

“I don’t blame you, baby.”

And every monster, angel, demon, and human he’s ever fought was somehow worth it.

 

~

Dean watches his brother fall in love all over again.

He watched his brother, those first few weeks, when their father was still missing and their lives weren’t still insignificant to the cosmos, have nightmare after nightmare. He watched him cry and pretend he wasn’t when Dean caught him, watched his nightmares turn to visions, watched him spiral and it all started with a woman who Dean met one time in the middle of night.

The guilt eats him alive from time to time, when he remembers how his brother tried falling in love again and lost everyone after that too.

He doesn’t know why she’s alive; she shouldn’t be, and he hopes that that’s okay.

He’s seen his brother on bad days. He’s seen him cry and beg and shake-- but never like this.

It seemed that all trauma from those long fifteen years that had been pushed down had finally led up, and his whole body showed it.

He looked small, helpless, scared, and ashamed.

Sam is the one to pull away, but only to hug Jessica close to his chest. His chin rested on the top of her head, small whispers and tears coming from both of them.

“Cas,” Dean whispers, pulling on his shirt. “Let’s give them some space.”

Cas nods, tapping on Jack’s shoulder to motion for him to follow. Jack gives a reluctant stare before following them out into the hallway.

The sounds of Sam and Jessica fade out behind the door, and no one says anything for a minute.

“Angel radio is going crazy, Dean,” says Cas, choosing his words carefully.  “Someone up there brought her back.”

“An angel did?” Dean responds.

Cas nods. “They keep saying her name. And Sam’s. It seems that most didn’t know it happened.”

Dean doesn’t say anything back, because he’s not sure what to say. If it wasn’t supposed to happen, then it’ll probably be undone. And he can’t put Sam through that again. Not after the way he looked at her.

He forgets Jack is standing by, until he says, “Does Sam...love her?”

Both men look at him, and Dean can see the little wheels turning in his head, a confused but bewildered look across his face.

“Yeah, kid, he always has.” Dean tells him softly.

Jack looks back at Dean, frowning slightly. “Everytime I ask about her, he’s busy.”

Dean smiles sadly, because he forgets on occasion that Jack is too young to know what happened for the first twelve years of their lives.

“It’s sensitive for him, bud. Always been hard for him to talk about.”

“He told me her name. That was it.”

Dean thinks for a second. “Jess was his college sweetheart back at Stanford. Sam went to school for awhile...before things turned all messy.”

“I didn’t know that.” Jack looks apologetic.

“He doesn’t like people pitying him. But God knows he deserves some pity once in awhile.”

“Was she dead?”

Dean’s mouth forms a line. “Yes. It was really hard on him. Don’t think he ever got over it...‘cause they killed the girl he loved.”

He can tell Jack isn’t quite satisfied, but he doesn’t ask anymore questions.

“She’s missed quite a lot.” Cas puts in.

“Sam will tell her what’s been happening.” Dean says, starting to walk into the kitchen. Everyone deserves something good for dinner, and his mother had given him a couple of recipes to try out.

“But will he tell her _everything?”_ Cas chides, sending a shake through Dean’s core.

He knows Sam won’t tell her about Hell, Lucifer, being soulless...all the stuff Sam wishes he didn’t know either.

He won’t tell her about all those he’s lost, or he _will_ , and Sam will blame himself.

“No, he won’t.” Dean decides. “That will be for us to do.”

 

~

The night was a warm one, and Jess felt much more comfortable in the skinny jeans Sam had found for her and one of his flannels.

Her brain was muddled with memories returning...of her family and of school and of how she missed more than a decade of life.

And she notices, that as her and Sam lay underneath the stars, on a blanket on the rooftop and the very mysterious bunker, that Sam looks at her like at any moment she’ll leave.

“What do you want to know?” Sam asks, his voice rough but just as Sam-like as she remembered. She likes listening to his heartbeat through his shirt, combined with the slow music from the radio Sam brought out with them.

_(Hush now, don't cry, wipe away the teardrop from your eye….)_

Castiel had filled her on the basics, the ones she had accepted reluctantly.

Heaven and Hell were real. Satan, God, demons and angels, all real. Same with all the monsters that she had been afraid off, when her older brothers would watch scary movies and she’d run and hide.

She knew she still had a family, out there somewhere.

She left them behind at least seventeen years ago. No, they left her behind. Sam was the family she chose, the family she made. And she loved him more than anything. She didn’t need her crackhead father or her forgetful mother or her deranged brothers.

She sighs contently before choosing what to say.

“What happened to you, Sam?”

His eyes were sunken in, worse than late night study sessions mixed with too much coffee.

He smiled down on her confusedly, but it faltered momentarily. She saw the pain, the tears, and the lost innocence.

“Oh, baby, what did they do to you?” She asks again, her voice breaking. Sam just somehow manages to hold her closer.

“It’s been a rough couple of years.” He says finally. “And...I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted to leave and never return if you knew.”

Her breath tightens. “Why did you say you were sorry?”

Sam takes a deep breath, and she squeezes his middle slightly.

“I was having dreams...of you dying. The same way you did. And they turned out to be…” He trails off.

“What?”

“They were visions. I got them of people dying. Sometimes before. Or during. But that’s what they were.” He sound so shameful, and it breaks her heart.

“But you didn’t know it’d come true.” She tells him.

“I should have said something.” She can hear the tears clog his throat. “Because it turned so much bigger after that.”

She doesn’t ask for more, but she knows Sam knows she wants to.

“There are books,” he starts. “That were written about Dean and I by...God?”

“God?” She asks, pretending not to be taken back. Sam chuckles.

“I know. It’s a lot. But they are...pretty damn accurate.”

“And I can read them?”

“Yeah. We have them downstairs. Probably help fill in the blanks, you know?”

She nods against his chest.

She knows Sam’s been through something hideous. Something ugly. Maybe even more than one thing.

And if she knows anything about Sam, it’s that he bottles it all up. But maybe the books are enough for know.

“Who’s Jack?” She asks suddenly. Sam laughs a bit louder, fondly.

“Jack is...Lucifer’s son.” He flinches at Lucifer’s name and she pretends not to notice.

 _“Seriously?”_ She exclaims, a small chuckle to her words.

“Yeah, I know. But he’s a super good kid.” Sam speaks so fondly of him, a stark difference to when she asked, all those years ago, how he felt on kids.

_(“I don’t think I’d make a good dad.”_

_“I don’t think that entirely true, babe.”_

_“No--just--I wouldn’t want to screw them up.”)_

“You seem to love him a lot.” She says, without really thinking. But Sam nods.

“I do. _We_ do. He’s our kid.”

He doesn’t say much after that, but the silence is comfortable. She just looks up at the stars, somehow happy to be alive. She can constantly see the apology in Sam’s eyes, see all the loss and goodbyes in them. Parts of her want to run away with him again, escape to where it’s just them again, but she knows that can’t happen. Sam and his brother and Castiel and even the son of Satan...they made something here.

She kind of hates how she missed everything for so long. There was a time, when she was young, when her father would holler at her mother, when he brothers would leave for long hours at a time, where she would want to be dead.

She somehow managed the scholarships, managed to save every penny, and she escaped.

And met Sam Winchester.

“I never stopped loving you.” Sam says suddenly, meaning every word. “Even when all was lost...when everything hurt or was too dark...I would remember you and be okay.”

She turns her head up, letting her tears fall down her cheeks.

She kisses him on the lips, hoping that it showed her love back.

“I died loving you. And will keep on loving you.”

The song on the radio sounds somewhat familiar, but she was never much of a music snob. Sounds like a musical, which she never enjoyed, but always put up with because Sam’s go to movies when he was sick was either _West Side Story_ or _Carousel._

“Dance with me.” She decides.

“Huh?”

“Dance with me!” She pulls them both to their feet, catching Sam when he wobbled slightly.

He carefully placed his hand on her waist, and she threw her around his neck.

_When you walk through a storm_

_Hold your head up high_

_And don't be afraid of the dark_

_At the end of a storm_

_There's a golden sky_

_And the sweet silver song of a lark_

_Walk on through the wind_

_Walk on through the rain_

_Though your dreams be tossed and blown_

_Walk on, walk on_

_With hope in your heart_

_And you'll never walk alone_

“You know what?” Sam says, eyes closed.

“Hmm?”

“I asked you what I’d do without you. You said ‘crash and burn.’”

“Yeah?”

“Well...you were right.”


	3. she used to be mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He was going to marry you.”   
> That’s the first real sentence Dean Winchester says to her.   
> He’s kind enough, they all are, and the little Jack kid looks at her like she’s the most beautiful thing in the world, but they’re all kind of scary. They’ve all seen something dark and bad, something that Jessica could never really understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is completely self indulgent lmaoo please enjoy

“He was going to marry you.” 

That’s the first real sentence Dean Winchester says to her. 

He’s kind enough, they all are, and the little Jack kid looks at her like she’s the most beautiful thing in the world, but they’re all kind of scary. They’ve all seen something dark and bad, something that Jessica could never really understand. 

“Huh?” The phrase knocks the wind out of her slightly. 

She was kind of used to the mornings now, a week in and she had a routine. Sam wakes up, she wakes up, Sam showers, she showers, they eat breakfast.

(Dean just made better coffee than Sam did.) 

He smiled slightly. “He was going to marry you.” 

“Marry me?” It takes all her power not to throw the coffee back up. 

Dean sets the coffee pot down, taking a careful seat across from her. 

“Jess--I can call you Jess, right?” Jess nods at him, setting her own cup down. He doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “What has Sam told you?”

“He told me bad things have happened. He told me about- about the apocalypse.”

The word feels strange on her tongue. All of it was strange. Angels and demons. Because if you buy demons and angels, you’ve got to buy Heaven and Hell. And if you buy that, you’ve got to buy God. And that’s a lot. 

Dean looks towards the door, as if he’s trying to see if someone was listening. “There’s some things you don’t know.” 

“Like what?” She twirled her coffee into a whirlpool, watching the ripples fade but not looking Dean in the eyes. He wasn’t saying anything she didn’t already know. Sam wasn’t telling her everything. He offered her those books, but if she was being honest, she would rather hear it from a first hand account. She guessed Dean was her best option.

“Do you know how the apocalypse started?” 

That? That she unfortunately did know. 

“Sam.” She gulped. She added more sugar. “Sam did it. But I don’t think--”

“You don’t think it was his fault?” Dean offered. She looked up and nodded. Everything he had said that night--three nights ago, when she finally asked what started it, when he looked so ashamed and unworthy-- didn’t seem to be so accurate. 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasn’t. Not in hindsight.” 

“What really happened to him?” 

“That demon, Ruby, she...she took advantage of him. Slipped in when he was weak. Got into his head. He thought he was doing the right thing.” He had a look on his face as if he was remembering things that were hard to. The kind of memories that make you sick to your stomach. “You know, Sam’s had a knack for letting people walk all over him but...it was never as bad as that.” 

The world almost ended and she wasn’t apart of it. Would Sam have been apart of it, if she was alive? Would he have started it?

“I know something really horrible happened to him. He just...he just won’t tell me what.” 

Dean looked like he was expecting this answer. “That’s my brother for you. He’s not really good at the whole ‘talking about my feelings thing.’ I’m not saying he should be begging for everyone’s attention but...he’s gotten too good at keeping things in.” 

“I remember that about him.” She said, her voice kind of sad and distant. 

“I know you do. He’s always been like that.” Dean replied, looking at her with understanding. He cleared his throat. “This can’t be easy for you. I-I know what’s it like to come back from the dead. We all have.” 

“Interesting. Sam too?” 

“A couple times.” Dean smirked. 

“That’s surprisingly...cool.” 

It was easy, talking to Dean. Not like Sam’s conversations (she liked them best), where he spoke softly and laughed tightly and smiled brightly. Or like Castiel’s where he seemed to be constantly confused yet cursed with knowledge anyway. Or even Jack, who followed her with his puppy dog eyes, wanting to ask her a million questions but biting his tongue. 

Dean, Dean was different. Not like his brother. But he was an easy listener. 

“Jess.” His voice broke through her thoughts.

“Yeah?” He was going to tell her something. Something she didn’t want to hear. 

He rubbed his stubble. “Sam stopped the apocalypse from happening. He saved the world.  _ We  _ saved the world. But there was a cost.” 

“And what was it? The cost?” She gulped. Her face grew hot. Her stomach flared.  

Dean didn’t look that much difference. “He let Lucifer in. He got control back and he...he threw himself into Lucifer’s cage.” 

Her blood went all icy. Chilled her bones. “C-Cage?”

“Where he was locked up in Hell. For...for hundred of Hells years. Different from human years.” 

Jess swallowed down the feeling of crying. “I take it one doesn’t exactly come back from that.” 

“No. He never did. Jess...he lost his soul.” Dean looked like he could cry too. “And-And he got it back but...it had already been ruined in the cage.” 

“My God…” 

She knew it was bad. But never, not in a million year, could she have thought of a thing as bad as that. 

“Don’t tell him I told you. Please,” he said. “He just would never tell you the truth. He thinks it’s a burden.” 

“It’s not.” Jess supplied. 

“I know,” Dean smiled sadly. “But I can’t change his mind.” 

Sam Winchester. Her love. 

That explained the pain behind his eyes. 

 

~

The day before Sam came back, the day before she died, Jessica Moore stress baked for three hours. She didn’t like the idea of her boyfriend (soon to be fiance, but she didn’t know that) out and about with the wayward brother he talked so fondly yet sadly about, looking for a father whom she only heard hurtful things about. 

Her stomach hurt. 

She threw up. 

That wasn’t right, was it? 

She checked the date on the wall. 

She connected the dots and bought a pregnancy test. 

It was very possible, and that’s what scares her the most, as she watched the timer tick. 

She couldn’t have kids. Not this young. Not right now, in college, when her and Sam’s life was just beginning. She was only 21, she just started to drink legally. 

Sam didn’t want kids. She didn’t want kids. At least, not yet. 

The timer went off. Two clear blue lines.

“Fuck.” 

She wanted to cry. Or maybe scream. But most of all, she wanted Sam. She wanted him to wrap her up in his arms and tell her they’d make it work, that they could somehow round up enough money to raise a kid, and that everything would be alright. 

But Sam wasn’t there. Sam was gone and he wouldn’t be back until Monday. 

She tried to call Sam, but it went straight to voicemail. 

So she tried to call her mother.

And for once, it went through. 

“Jessie?” Her mother’s voice was in a whisper. Scared. Like she always sounded. 

“Jessica. Just call me Jessica, mom.” 

“Oh, Jessica! Where have you been?” 

Jessica wiped tears away from her face. “Stanford, mom, college. Remember?” 

“Yes, baby, I remember.” She sounded like she only remembered in that moment. 

“Mom, I need--”

“Jessie, honey, can’t you come home? Derek and Aidan, they miss their sister--”

“Mom, I don’t want to talk to them. Not after…”

“Not after ‘the incident,’ I know, but your father--”

“Mom! Please. I just--I just need you.” Her voice cracked. Those brothers of hers...they weren’t good people. That’s not to say her mother was a saint, but she didn’t mean any harm. She just was too used to enabling. 

“Okay, baby. I’m right here.” It sounded so  _ genuine,  _ so real, and it only made her tear up more. 

“Mom, something’s...wrong.” 

“What’s wrong?” Her mother started the car, wherever she was. “Is it Sam?”

“No! Sam’s wonderful,” she started. “But...I’m pregnant.” 

There was silence on the other end. 

“Pregnant?” Her mother said, after a moment. 

“Yeah,” she said. “And I don’t know what to do.” 

“Well…” Her mother’s voice was slow. “You want to keep them?” 

Jessica thought for a moment. “Yes.” 

“Is Sam a good man?” 

“He’s amazing, mom.” Jess smiled. 

“Then...you’re going to do great.” Her mother sighed.

“You think so?”

“Yeah, Jessie, I do.”

And for a moment, there was a comfortable silence. 

“I have to go now, hon. Your father is in a bad mood.”

Jess’s smile faded. “Oh. Alright.” 

“Oh, but please come visit soon!” 

“I’ll see you at Christmas, mom.” She really wouldn’t. 

She hung up. 

 

~  

So, the memory flood back into her head as she leaned over the toilet seat, her hair sticky down her back. 

Of all the memories to wait to come back, that was the worst one. Her mother...her mother shouldn’t know she was alive. She couldn’t do that to her. Maybe one day, when it wasn’t all  _ so much,  _ she’d find her. Not today. 

She was still pregnant. 

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. 

“Jessica? Are you okay?” That was Castiel. 

She hastily rubbed her mouth with a towel. “Yes?” 

“You’re throwing up.” It was no question, he knew. 

“Oh, Umm—”

“I’m coming in.” 

“No!” 

But the door swung open anyway. Cas stood over her and tilted his head at the sight, obviously taking in her state. 

“Are you sick?” He asked. “I can heal you, you know.” 

She shook her head vigorously. “N-No, I’m—“

His eyes grew abnormally large. “You can’t be.” 

“What?” She exclaimed. But some type of tension hung in the air like he just  _ knew.  _

“Were you before you died?” His voice was in a low whisper, like anyone in the world could hear him. Oh yes, he definitely knew. “Jessica?” 

Jess swallowed down both bile and tears. “Yeah.” 

Cas kneeled down beside her, taking a seat across from her. Bonding. This was bonding, correct?

“And when you come back…” 

“Came back perfectly  _ healed. Perfectly.”  _ She emphasized. 

Castiel nodded. “Does...does Sam know? I assume it’s—”

“It is. It’s his,” she reassured. She bowed her head. “No, he doesn’t. Please. Don’t tell him. Or Dean. Please.” 

“I won’t. You should do it yourself.” Cas told her. “Pretty shitty timing, isn’t it?” 

“God, the worst.” She agreed. 

Cas smiled at her. He was a good man. Angel. Whatever. 

She didn’t hate it so much after all. The boys...they were good men. Maybe her kid would grow up good like them too. 

**Author's Note:**

> i,,,fucking love jessica moore  
> this is def canon divergent but i do NOT care lmao


End file.
